Console Exclusives' Stats Fixed, Blue Posts, Open World is a Real Possibility

Console Exclusives' Stats Fixed
The level requirements on the Console preorder exclusive items looked pretty interesting and made players wonder if said requirements were just placeholders which they turned out to be. As promised, the community managers gathered more information and the stats were updated.

Paragon Levels will help for Character Customization
We think that customizing your character is important too, and it's something we'd like to make happen. There are a lot of ways this can be handled, and Travis Day mentions Paragon levels as a possibility. I'll provide a quote from the interview, or you can read the whole thing right here if you want. We're always interested in feedback, so please let us know what you think about the subject.

You had talked about character customization, and maybe tying that into Paragon somehow?
Travis: I would like to, yes. So for character customization - this is an RPG. Part of an RPG is the fantasy of being this character, or progressing or developing this character is that your Barbarian is different than my Barbarian and is different from that guy's Demon Hunter. The fantasy is that you are in some way unique and distinct from everyone else, and a lot of that has to do with character customization. That's why a lot of people get really excited when they talk about items, or Paragon customization, or they want to assign attributes. People just want more ways to distinguish themselves from each other, right? We don't all want to be Kretos. I want to be Conan, but I want my Conan to be called BobTheSlayer, and I want him to be different from your guy. I personally want to hook progression or customization into the Paragon system, but there's a lot of work still to be done there, and a lot of the ideas are still not finalized. I want that, and I think players should one day expect to see that.

Benefits from Fallen HeroesBasically If your hero died in inferno mp2 in The Fields of Misery, you could find a lootable (small amount of gold/note) slain hero corpse with your previous hero's name in that location on inferno mp 2 on your other heroes.
Thanks for the feedback! I think that's a pretty good idea, personally. (Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)

Open World Mode is a Real Possibility
There was already some talk about the idea of an open D3 world yesterday, but Grimiku elaborated a little on the topic. He mentioned that the potential open world mode has no story in it and that 'there are senior developers on the same page'. Obviously we'll just have to wait and see what the future of D3 holds.

I'll quote Wyatt Cheng in this post so you guys don't have to follow the link I posted earlier.

We've talked about open world, where you can skip story and cinematics. I shouldn't use the word, "talked about". That can be ambiguous, where it can mean "oh it was mentioned" as opposed to, "no, we actually sat down and assessed the production cost, and time, and weighed it against other opportunities." We can't chase everything at once, so we have to look at the 100 things we could do, and pick the ones that we want to do. If we do for example, a no-quest open world mode, then we might not be able to do an alternate monster distribution for an area. That's not an accurate comparison, but we definitely look at all the things that we'd like to do. For alternate distribution, I'll mention that: I would love if I came by an area, and it wasn't always the same monsters. Diablo 2 did some of that, where you came through an area and the distribution was different. It still made sense artistically for the area, but there was a little more variety.

I know a lot of you would like more concrete details on dates, or even a time frame estimate, but I don't have any to share right now. We’d still prefer to talk about things we're working on as early as possible rather than remaining silent (caveat: I know there are some of you who may disagree with this approach). That said, I think what Wyatt is talking about sounds pretty awesome, and we’ve seen a bunch of posts from the community on this topic. A lot of you mentioned it would be cool if there was a mode where there was an open world mode with no story, and I think it's good for you to know that there are senior developers on the same page.

He does have a point. It's an issue that the game was in such need of improvements (and to be fair, many of them did occur in the last patches), that many players feel like Blizzard is still trying to catch the train. Naturally there's an expectation from many players to see new elements in the game which in fact will take quite some time to show up simply because the Devs are aware that they can improve the game in a huge variety of ways. And they can't do everything at the same time.

Even though the progress is slow (er) than we'd wish, I'm satisfied with these new ideas/discussions being brought to the table. We just have to patient (even though it sucks :P).

What Blizzard should've done with Diablo 3 is they should've made it Sub based. Ok I know alot of people say "OMG I dont wanna pay 10€ a month for a game! ITS SO MACH!" Here is what I have to say to you: 10€ is what I spend on 1 meal, and I don't even get drinks with it because 10€ is nothing. Well Im talking about at a resturant, sometimes I spend around 30€, and thats not at some expensive resturant. So how about you just try to purchase less food or go out not as much and spend the money for the gametime, assuming you're poor and think 10€ is much, personally I don't. I mean look at game costs today, you spend 60-80€ and you get 8-16hours gameplay and the game is over. In Diablo 3 I have over 1500 hours, I spent around 80€ on the game, thats what 0.05, or roughly 1.3€ I spent each day /played. Thats not much, because I spent last 1 year(alot in the first 6 months) under 6 hours a day on Diablo 3, first months I spent 14-16 hours. So how about spending 10€ extra a month, just ask your boss to work 1.5-2 hours extra once a month and you have enough to pay for it. But what would a Sub based game make it better? Well look at Diablo 3 team, its like 4 people working on the game and 1 community manager or something. And they're working slowly because well, a small team and low income from RMAH. If they would've decided "Hey lets make a Diablo 3 sub based" they could've had ALOT more people work on Diablo 3, get alot better alpha testing and beta testing, people would've gotten Finished game at release, not early beta. Inferno would've been challaning but casuals would've been able to beat it, itemization would've been a thing early in the game, we'd have PvP, and decently balanced one. Our spells would be improved, including our runes. We'd have more features etc. They could get rid of RMAH, I mean they wont need the small income, and RMAH is the worst feature of D3 anyways(not for traders, gold bots and rich people) but they're in the minimum and you shouldn't be able to be Pay 2 Win through the game. Thank god it doesn't affect other people too much. Also imagine, 14mil bought the game in total, perhaps it would've been more closer to 10mil with sub, also imagine how many people would've sticked with the game until now, atleast more then what we currently have playing, the game si dying slowly. Small fixes and features don't keep players busy for 4 months between patches. So ye, we could get bigger patches more frequently and also the expansion could have alot more potential. Because the difference of having a small team or a decently big team working on a game is a big difference. How many people would buy Diablo 4? Or D3 expansion? Not that many, because they saw how big Diablo 1 and 2 were, and how much Diablo 3 failed, thats what they see. They wont bother to check how good it will be at that time, because they've already got first impression and thats what they will stick with. Same with people going into business, lets say you fix computers, and you didn't do a good job at the start, people will know you as the amateur computer worker. No matter how much you improve, you wont get many costumers.

Sorry for wall of text, typos and maybe going too much into details and shit, but meh. Just saying my opinion on the game.

Also when I start thinking of diablo 3 all I can think of is "Im gonna farm useless demonics because im not lucky to craft a good item" and "I cba farming legendaries to brimstone". I've picked up thousands of items, too bad only 1 of them was good, 2 half decent and rest meh, I just wasted so much time on nothing. I dont even get excited for drops anymore, even Echoing Fury or Mempo, it wont have socket+CD and CC anyways, right? Plus if it does, it will be low and worth 200mil, and 200mil is nothing.

Before Diablo 3 was released the developers actually had a focus on customization that can be
seen with the past trait system but somewhere along the line everything was removed.

Now a year later after release have they just started to put together plans on how to provide character
customization.

Blizzard is notorious in only providing content when they feel it's ready so for us to read that they
are in the 'brainstorming' phase only means that it will take months before we see any progress.

This is an action role-playing game and you don't see a problem with how they approached one of the main
aspects of a genre that should have been in the game since day one?

Not that you don't have a few points, but I think his issue is more that the cynicism of the 'fans' of this game is overwhelmingly annoying on a daily basis. I may be biased as an optimist, but seriously the amount of complaining any time they announce something they may be working on to improve the game is beyond me. Complaining is one thing, but bitching about every little thing they do is what it's come down to and is getting extremely old. Especially considering the type of player customization they're talking about, which isn't simple gear or skill customization but character customization, something action RPGs aren't actually known for.

I'm not saying we should praise Blizzard by any means, but at least have some respect for the fact that they're at least trying. 99% of games out there wouldn't have half the development work that this game has had and continues to have after it's release. The fact that they're obviously trying to fix things in the game that players have issues with should be enough considering they technically don't have to do anything with the game once it's released, just like the majority of development on games out there.

One of my biggest gripes about D3 is (a side from lack of an offline mode) the structure of way points. Many have ranted about how feature X, Y, and Z were perfect in D2 and the way points stand out to me. Open world sounds SO friggin right/proper/correct. I remember during Beta folks were saying that at launch there would be an option to chose acts from the main WP in town. They were wrong, terribly, terribly wrong.

I hate the paragon system. Really. I will never get to p99 (no biggie) thus the customization (that may become) tired to p-levels are pretty much a wash for me. I'm cool with it thought...I mean this game is rooted in the three completely non-customizable rouge, warrior and sorcerer so any features seem to be a plus. Hell, I'm still amazed that you can chose the sex of your toon.

What Blizzard should've done with Diablo 3 is they should've made it Sub based. Ok I know alot of people say "OMG I dont wanna pay 10€ a month for a game! ITS SO MACH!" Here is what I have to say to you: 10€ is what I spend on 1 meal, and I don't even get drinks with it because 10€ is nothing.

im a colleage student from serbia, 10euro is foof for 3days, d3 was the only game besides warcraft3 that i ever purchase, any other game was pirated. The rmah is for me a good thing, otherwise i wouldnt have some good months from a financial point. did you here that d3 even sells in taiwan,russia,afrika and south america. i think they have even less money so 10euro is even more for them, i wish i could play WoW back than before 5year, but 13euro a month......

Before Diablo 3 was released the developers actually had a focus on customization that can be
seen with the past trait system but somewhere along the line everything was removed.

Now a year later after release have they just started to put together plans on how to provide character
customization.

Blizzard is notorious in only providing content when they feel it's ready so for us to read that they
are in the 'brainstorming' phase only means that it will take months before we see any progress.

This is an action role-playing game and you don't see a problem with how they approached one of the main
aspects of a genre that should have been in the game since day one?

Not that you don't have a few points, but I think his issue is more that the cynicism of the 'fans' of this game is overwhelmingly annoying on a daily basis. I may be biased as an optimist, but seriously the amount of complaining any time they announce something they may be working on to improve the game is beyond me. Complaining is one thing, but bitching about every little thing they do is what it's come down to and is getting extremely old. Especially considering the type of player customization they're talking about, which isn't simple gear or skill customization but character customization, something action RPGs aren't actually known for.

I'm not saying we should praise Blizzard by any means, but at least have some respect for the fact that they're at least trying. 99% of games out there wouldn't have half the development work that this game has had and continues to have after it's release. The fact that they're obviously trying to fix things in the game that players have issues with should be enough considering they technically don't have to do anything with the game once it's released, just like the majority of development on games out there.

I see your point on how tiring it must be to continue reading complaints rather than well-formed criticisms when
it comes to discussion regarding developer statements.

However I have already been burned out once from their promises and that came from the "removal" of the previously
hyped dueling system.

So perhaps you can understand how tiring it must be for me to still read segments such as "we would like to", "it's possible", or "we've talked about" when it comes to these core gameplay concerns.

Hopefully the itemization update will live up to community expectations but we won't know that until sometime after BlizzCon 2013.

I see your point on how tiring it must be to continue reading complaints rather than well-formed criticisms when
it comes to discussion regarding developer statements.

However I have already been burned out once from their promises and that came from the "removal" of the previously
hyped dueling system.

So perhaps you can understand how tiring it must be for me to still read segments such as "we would like to", "it's possible", or "we've talked about" when it comes to these core gameplay concerns.

Hopefully the itemization update will live up to community expectations but we won't know that until sometime after BlizzCon 2013.

I can definitely see your perspective as well, but looking at things so pessimistically, especially with a company like Blizzzard whose developers are so open with the community about what they want to do and why, doesn't get you anywhere.

You also need to realize how game development works and why most companies aren't as open as Blizzard about it, because most people have no idea of the limitations of development. Them being open about what they want to do is not to hype the game, but to get player feedback on it as well as advise players of what they're working on. Sure, they've let us down on some aspects that's for sure, but they're still being extremely open about how they're developing this game which 99% of developers would never do.

This is also not them promising anything, as they've stated across most of their dev discussions on all of their games, as it's more them thinking out loud to the community about what they think may be good features for the game. This always leads to people assuming it as guaranteed player features when that's hardly the case at all. So don't misinterpret this as most people do. However, I much prefer it over other developers who may care what players think, but don't talk about it so they don't upset a vocal minority that gets upset when they scrap something that wouldn't turn out the way they like it. WoW is a great example of this as well, and while it may suck to not get all the features they talk about, it's nice to know they at least are open enough to talk about it to us as well as explain to us why it wouldn't work when they cancel certain features.

I mean would you honestly prefer them to not say a word and just produce features without any player feedback?